Haven’t been blogging so much lately..  bad Matt!  But how about a short little post? ( He says realizing short never happens for him )

So there’s basically 2 things worth talking about today.. or thoughts, or things I seem to be up to. #1 Is the music production stuff and #2 Is thinking about promotional efforts.

The Music Production Adventures

Though I didn’t post anything.. I have been writing about a new project I’ve started… inside of Ableton Live.. This project reached new hightes today.  So lets explore a little:

Of all the DAWs in my sonic arsenal, Ableton Live is the one I’m weakest with..  I have certain ways of working.. that I’ve been evolving for the past 15 or so years..  and I’m not sure how Live could fit into that way of working. Usually I think it has the potential to bring my work in new directions.. and so that’s some of what I find myself exploring…

The first stage in the current adventure has been creating loops.. I have a rather large library of audio.. music I’ve made, stuff I’ve recorded…  The process is one of loading up the audio files, and selecting loop points. Live will do the beat matching for you.. so whatever the tempo of the original work… Live will match it to the tempo..  

But the real fun comes from shaping looping envelops that control the parameters of whatever effect you might want to place on your loop.. Via various processing you “design loops” that are often unrecognizable.. from there original. This is, at least for me, a fun and unpredictable creative process… which yields results I wouldn’t other wise be able to achieve. 

Today, however, brought all this stuff to a crazy new level. As I began digging around my hard drives in search of audio files.. I started to find some interesting things….

A shape forms

Some of what I found were recordings made..  Well the podcast episode I recorded hours after my mom had passed… Left phone messages from my therapist and collection agencies.. There’s a collection of sounds that.. as I started putting together an arrangement of this stuff..

Well it was probably some of the most emotional sound art I’ve ever heard in my life.. It was powerful as hell..  It was also emotional draining, to the point that I felt on the verge of an emotional breakdown from going there.. but I think it was also therapeutic.. and I have this feeling that I really do need to go there.

So that’s basically that on the music production side of things..

Online Music Marketing

While running a few errins, I was seduced by the evil Barns and Nobel.. in to buying “Web Marketing for the Music Business” by a Mr. Tom Hutchison.. brought to us by Focal Press… 

Well I think this is about the best book on the subject I’ve come across. As a “social media peep” I’m hyper up on how marketing and communications are changing in this new media space.. Even if I’m not executing on it, I am an expert on social media strategy…  or something of one.. ( seeing as most of the people I look up to as mentors / experts in this area claim not to be experts these days )… In any event… this puts me in a unique place to evaluate such a book.. never mind all the music marketing type books I’ve read in the past.. and I’m here to tell you that this book is totally top notch.. from what I’ve been able to gather thus far.

So reading a book like this brings me to rethinking my strategy / shtick..  

So I’ll kinda leave this post short.. with just a couple finishing comments:

I’m feeling inspired by the promotional adventures ahead.. but also somewhat in awe of the challenges of it..  so wish me luck… 

I figure.. even if I’m totally consumed by other things.. I ought to try and at least get up a post a week or so.. so here goes

These posts might be getting repetitive on this point.. but allow me to describe for you the first track.. as it stands

Lyrics

It’s based on some lyrics I tweeted.. I don’t have them handy.. but I’ll probably post them in good time.. kind of surreal / dada-distic, so to speak.. a strange style of writing.. pretty out there.. extraordinarally deep.. though there depth lys in a place that makes them difficult to understand.. seems almost like gibberish in places.. 

If I were to try and put it in a sound bit.. its as if it’s blaming our current economic problem as an effect of extroversion in the modern situation..  but I’m not sure if that’s what it’s really doing.

Vocal Performance

The performance is to be realized via VirSyn’s Cantor.. which is a vocal synthesizer.  I’ve really only fiddled with Cantor thus far.. so I’m not entirely sure about.. well if I’m going to be able to get an acceptable performance out of it.. not sure how it’ll end up working.. not sure if the work flow I’m attempting is realistic.. so this remains the big question mark.

The way I’m working it is to write out a synth line.. that’s the vocal line.. a kind of stand in.. and to take that performance data.. and put it into Cantor.. and basically fine tune it from there.

The frequency space of Cantor, versus the synth that’s doing the mock up.. will be different.. so.. a part of the process will be trying to make Cantor intelligible with all the other stuff going on in the mix..  well its actually slightly more complex then even this.. Basically.. we have a tun of instruments.. that I’ve brought down into a few groups.. the plan is the put EQ and Compression on the different groups individually.. via Liquid Mix 16.. also put something on the master buss.. and kinda automate the EQs as needed.. 

I also expect that.. once the performance data gets brought into Cantor.. I might start messing around with it.. and possibly there’ll be stuff like backing vocals.. and who knows what.

The Music

The music is pretty insane actually.. I’d say it’s sorta Indra’s Net-esk.. only more so.. taken to a whole new level. 

What goes into it

So far the production features about 30 instruments.. and about 8 auxiliary effects.. We’re talking 2 instances of Digital Performer’s convolution reverb.. 2 delay orientated Guitar Rig Patches, one EVerb from Digital Performer.. 2 reverbs from Kore 2… and I’m not sure what else.. 

To appreciate the insanity of this.. For each instrument.. besides simply telling it what notes to play when, and how hard to play those notes.. you have the automation of Pan position, volume, 8 auxiliary sends.. very often pitch bend and modulation.. and some of the instruments have other performance parameters that I might play with over the course of a track. So.. that’s what..  12 times 30? So that’s 360 parameters you’re programing.. never mind the notes.. So the production is very time consuming.. And though I’ve put in a lot of labor.. it’s currently only about two thirds of the way through… and only a little more then 3 minutes long.

Results thus far

As I was saying before.. It reminds me quite a bit of my Indra’s Net stuff.. only more so. The things I felt critical of in Indra’s Net.. well.. it overcomes those problems and limitations.. There’s more instruments, more effects.. more advanced software, way more powerful computer.. What all this means to the music is… well I’m not really sure.. but I think it’s something kind of big.

While we’re at it, I might as well share with you one of the question marks it presents me with…  Because the amount of instruments, and what not, are so much higher.. things are way more complex. Structurally, my music is not big on repetition…  at least not in a conventional sense..  One of the reasons repetition is important to.. say pop music, is it assists the digestion of the music… it is, after all, “the hook.” When my music was a few order of magnitude less complex then the current project.. I think the simplicity made it easier to digest.. So one of the things I worry about is.. well.. how difficult it might be to appreciate / digest / whatever… So… that’s like a design consideration question.

If we just listen to the music and try and appreciate what it is..  

Well its like a first step into a new world. I think it might be some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. It is full of amazing moments.. flying between a kind of symphonic like aggression kind of LSD trip.. to adventures in ambient space.. where we feel the contraction of space its self.. beneath our feet.. Along the way we travel through so many different sonic spaces and environments.. experience so many different sonic phenomenon.. From classical to all out electronica..  I just think its amazing.

On Lyrics and Music

Now.. beyond all that.. the music is actually a kind of score to the lyrics.. so the music moves through space in such a way that.. it in some way comments on the lyrics.. There’s a line “to creep the reaper out” and we feel the darkening of the space around us…. 

It seems, in a certain way, that both my lyrics and my music are like “adventures in run on sentences.”  It’s all stream of consciousness stuff..  we can go anywhere at anytime.. for any reason.. but..

The spirit of the lyrics is playfully subversive.. seeking to express truths that.. are somehow how in our collective shadow.. My lyrics are very often dark.. living in the abyss.. some of there darkness has to do with there.. transcendence of conventional.. limitations.. which is it’s self an expression of freedom.. all be it free to give satan a bare hug, or something.. freedom  to be monstrous… 

The music is another matter.. A music that is programmed.. note by note… where we’re probably programing something like.. well how many parameters per note? A lot…  That’s a slow a methodical process… It’s not really free as the breeze in quite the same way the lyrics are.. It’s more “free to exert influence over the momentum of the flux in question.” 

So the free as a bird lyrics becomes the central axis point of the whole production.. It’s like a stream of consciousness construction that’s.. somehow taken to this very extreme point of being realized.. via a slow and methodical process? The slow and methodical process is stream of consciousness to.. just that it’s a stream that takes place for days.. as a pose to a couple of tweets on twitter.. 

Going Deeper Into It.

It may sound like I’m just throwing a lot of random inane facts at you… that’s because I’m fumbling in the dark to try and express something I’ve yet to articulate… ok.. read onward for the break through.. or stop here.

We have streams of consciousness that happen at different time scales, what does that mean? Look at your self..  at some point.. and try to become mindful of all the thoughts as they stream past your consciousness.. We could be talking about.. “lets smell this flower” to “I think I shall now turn my head to find out what that dog is barking about.” 

You can look at it in such a way so as to see many thoughts as being made up of smaller thoughts.. and.. if you could imagine your thoughts as grains.. that made this kind of gass.. that filled a space.. you could say “show me all the grains that correspond to this theme” and you would start to see patterns in how various smaller thoughts where components of multiple larger thoughts.. 

I have a kind of pscyho-philosophy that has explored the dynamics underlying how all this works.. Why we think of what when.. what drives our attention.. and how this related to our concepts of reality and life, and what not.. And as it turns out.. this psycho-philosophical blah blah blah.. underlies my thoughts on aesthetics.. and is a major part of my the conceptual framework I use in making my art and music.. 

The idea that we’d be, essentially.. scoring streams of consciousness.. with streams of consciousness.. in a rather operatic way.. The idea that its sorta all on a lark.. that we then become committed to.. if for no other reason then to.. see what might happen.. that in a sense the whole production is nothing but a little experiment to see where all these thoughts lead…

Well that’s my problem with trying to articulate something.. how do you articulate an intuition? 

Well I guess that’s all I’ll write about on that track for now…  lol, but wait.. there’s more.. there’s also a Reason project in the works

The Reason Project

I was starting to feel a little burned out on the huge sound project.. so I thought I’d go take a stroll through Reason..  This project had me starting out via programming a couple Thor patches.. 

I don’t think of myself as terribly talented in the field of sound synthesis.. but.. sound synthesis is.. well I’ll end up with something.. and that something will probably give me something unique to try and go explore as a part of the larger production.

This project also had me loading up REX files..  Ages ago I blogged about how I had invested in ReCycle.. and used cheese open source voice synths to realize some lyrics.. and how I’d processed the hell out of those lyrics.. and then chopped them up into REX files.  Well.. I decided to take one line from that project.

This gets into another whole set of ideas I was playing with.. at the current stage… The idea is that we could eventually put together a track that would be.. that whole song.. with all the lyrics to it.. but for now we have one sentence.. going into this new project.. or one sentence.. cut up.. distorted.. processed.. rendered FUBAR.. played for it’s textures.. not even meant to be recognized as the sentence it is..

Here the vocals become.. a strange texture explored.. we emphasize a few words.. out of context.. as it turns out.. the word we are emphasizing in this project is the word “context.”

In any event.. there will be more to be talked about latter.. I’m over tired here.. what I will say is there’s some very interesting things coming into play with how I’m starting to play with lyrics and how they relate to the structure of the music I’m making….  leave it at that…

NaSoAlMo: What it is and why we like it

This month, or November actually, I plan on participating in NaSoAlMo, other wise known as National Solo Album Month.. This is a thing where various musician / sound artistic types.. decided to participate in a challenge to create a solo album in a months time..  Basically.. it’s an excuse to get serious.. for a month.

Last year, as long times followers would know, I created ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures.. for NaSoAlMo….  This, I must tell you, was one hell of an adventure. There’s nothing like working your ass off on something, if you want to grow by leaps and bounds… and at the end of last years National Solo Album Month’s thing..  I felt like I had made a giant jump in my music production / etc skills..  And so now, we embark on the next adventure…

On the Stategery and tactics of taking on such a challenge

Generally speaking.. if I’m working in my conventional ways.. and didn’t have a lot of other stuff to contend myself with.. was very focused.. I could maybe spit out about a track a week.. which might be around.. oh lets say an average of about 6 minutes a pop…. which comes out to what, like 24 minutes of music? Well.. the challenge is to make an album of at least 29:09 minutes.. so that’s not quite going to cut it.. and seeing as I have other things to deal with in life.. and seeing as last year I only found out about this about half way through the month… one must develop alternative strategies and tactics.. which is perhaps another interesting thing to deal with… 

So, lets take a look at last years strategies.. and this years strategies.

ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures Production Strategy 

I found out, as I said before, about this challenge, about half way through the month.. but had already begun work on a few tracks.. so figured I could still make a go of it.. If I tried something radicle.

My radical process started with.. working with different types of sound generating type programs.. where you improvise via tweaking various parameters and record the results. This instantly creates a whole lot of music.. but then you have the question of “is this interesting music?” So the next challenge is “how do we make this interesting music?” This became the jumping off point for an experimental sonic adventure. For the most part, this involved the following approaches:

1. Lets Process the crap out of these audio files.
2. Lets mix stuff together different versions of processed audio into a kind of composite audio file.
3. Lets slice up the audio file into discreet loops n stuff
4. Lets sequence the loops
5. Lets integrate this with our usual way of working 

 Well, that’s the broad outline anyway.. 

Tools Used

1. Ableton Live
2. Arturia Storm
3. Native Instruments Komplete (mostly Reaktor)
4. A Wimpy G4 Mac
5. Reason
6. A guitar
7. A Zoom H4 field recorder 

Ok, so that’s the basic broad brush stroke outline of it.. You can read more of my writings related to this project here…  That would be the full list.. The writings where I wrote during the production are as follows: Off In Reaktor Land, Red Rum Re Drumed, and finally Gonzo adventures in music production.

Should you like to hear the album in it’s entirety, you can find it on over here at mattsearles.com/music. 

At the time I created it.. I wasn’t real sure of it.. but since then I’ve gotten a lot of good reviews from people.. and now figure.. well, it’s probably a pretty good album.

The New Production Adventure

Tools likely to be used:

1. The Bad Ass 8 Core Mac Pro
2. This here new MacBook (2GHz Due)
3. Komplete 5
4. Kore
5. Ableton Live
6. Reason
7. ReCycle
8. A Tascam 16 channel Mixer as a MIDI controller
9. An M-Audio DJ like MIDI controller
10. A Guitar
11. A Slide Bass
12. Digital Performer
13. Liquid Mix 16
14. Couple of budget Condenser Microphones
15. Zoom H4

In addition to all that madness..  I’m looking to add VirSyns Cantor Vocal Synth and… VirSyns “Take Five FX bundle” which includes Bark, Matrix, Reflect, TDesign, and VTape. Indulge me as I talk about these a little, won’t you?

1. Bark is a pretty interesting looking  27 band filter / EQ and compressor
2. VTape is a set of analog tape emulation plugs that emulate tape based saturation, delay, and flange. I’m very much in need of a tape delay type effect.. and very much wanting some sort of analog tape emulation warmth.. 
3. Reflect is an Algorithmic Convolution Reverb. Even in the current version of Digital Performer, I’m not feeling like my reverb bases are covered quite enough.. and I expect Reflect to really help out along these lines.. and the integration of Algorithmic and Convolution technologies into a single reverb unit is a quite attractive thing.
4. TDesign is a Transient former.. I don’t know too much about this sorta effect.. but it does give you control over your dynamics / transience.. and there are quite a few production folks out there whom are very into such things
5. Matrix is a Vocoder, and according to a recent issue of Sound On Sound, a very impressive Vocoder.

 So… as you can no doubt see.. We’re talking about a massive upgrade from last year’s project.. studio wise anyway, so, what of the plan off attack?

Plan of Attack

I have lots of music ideas, and I’m pretty sure this project isn’t going to be able to explore them all.. but, we’ll certainly see how far we can make it.

• The first thing I want to do is.. See if I can’t jam out some stuff using Kore to control various Reaktor beatboxes, sequenced instruments, and sound generators..  This will effectively create one box full of building blocks.
• Next I want to experiment with a somewhat traditional-ish approach to sequencing.. where you play around on a keyboard, quantize stuff, and put together stuff that way..
• I want to use ReCycle to create REX files out of some of the results.. to use as building blocks that way.
• A rather central thing I want to explore is.. vocals. These vocals will probably be ether.. me speaking into microphones and vocoding the hell out of it.. / Melodying the hell of it.. or Cantor stuff.. somehow creatively mixed into the music.
• I’m actually thinking of the possibility that this album project could feature some sort of a narrative / lyrical whatever.. that might sit at the center of the album.. which would be a really huge jump for me to take.
• I see a part in the process where I jam away on guitar and bass to construct.. well… something or other.
• I imagine a part of the process where I have all kinds of content loaded up into Ableton Live.. and use the MIDI controllers / Mixers to kinda improvise out something…

 Of course, in the end, all this stuff must me integrated into one giant process… so, wish me luck…

In this episode I share my last sorta finished bit of music.. that I’ve been meaning to post forever.. I’m not sure what I think of it.. maybe you can leave your comments to help me think this through.. At the moment I’m thinking the mix could be fixed up a bit.. with respect to the base end.. That’s my chief issue.

I wrote a lot about this little project.. and so.. well, I should leave some links to said posts.

• Music to Freak Out Stoners: Music Production in the Deep End 
• MTFS Revisited: New Sonic Adventures

After this, we get a few posts that.. Kinda go into the depths.. and these are sorta subtextual, at least, stuff on this production.

• From Linguistics and music, to depth  psychology, psychedelics, mysticism, philosophy.. and Aesthetic as it relates to my musical art project
• Notes from a rad mad Electroacoustic creative music production process
• Some Jolly Lyrics.. to the music I’m making
• Must post something….. News from the front: Music Production blah blah blah’s

So I guess that’s it.. after that the blog kinda goes off into sound synthesis… which may sorta form the basis of what I show in the next podcast episode.. so till then hope you dig it.

I should add that should you want to subscribe to this via iTunes, this be the link. 

 

 Music to Freak Out Stoners Revisited [6:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After quite a hassle.. Digital Performer 6 is finally running on my system. The first thing you noticed about DP6, versus 5, is you got a new interface.. This new interface has 3 main implications:

1. How do you make a wheel again?: You have a new interface to learn… you must learn new ways of doing whatever it was you were doing before.. 
2. There is a Psycho Acoustic principle via which software with new shiny interfaces always sounds better then the old ugly ones: More then anyone ever wants to admit.. our perception of audio is influenced by suggestion.. and so it is that if the software you’re using looks pretty.. well you think it sounds a whole lot better. From the point of view of someone producing music.. this is a nice feature.. as it inspires you on your adventure..
3. Stuff is Streamlines, or at least that’s what MOTU would have you believe: For the period in which you can’t figure out how to do what you used to take for granted.. stuff isn’t streamlined…. But I must say.. there’s a lot of stuff about Digital Performer that I really thought was.. well ways in which DP wasn’t exactly making sense in a modern production context.. and what do you know.. they’ve worked out much of that.

Beyond this grooviness.. we got other new grooviness.. but none of this is what’s really striking me at the moment.

Matt, what is really striking you? 

What’s really striking me is a sense of Awe of what I’m able to do in my studio now. On the sonic software side of things we got Digital Performer 6, Ableton Live, Reason, Native Instruments Komplete, Kore 2, and Liquid Mix 16… plus a couple other odds and ends. There are gaps that still need filling, which I could go on about ad nauseam… some of which I’m looking to rectify in the short term, others more long term.. but however you want to slice it.. there’s a lot of power under the hood.

Why are you struck by this now?

This is a complex topic but.. There is this sense that “software tools are not as good as hardware tools,” or at least that would be a simple way of putting it. It’s quite a bit like some people feeling that vinyl records are better then CDs… That vinyl is somehow “warmer” then CDs. This is a complex topic that can go into subjects of sample rates, ramifications of particular mastering issues for vinyl… and on and on and on. In the world of music production technology the topic is even more complex as that the technology of production is much less static then the issues of Vinyl and CDs.. which, lets face it.. people are choosing low quality MP3s anyway…  so what does it really matter?

My production tools acquisition process has always been one where issues of “price versus performance” plays the key roll.. If hardware tools are 1o% better then software tools, but cost 40% more.. I’m probably going with the software.. But in the world of serious sound engineering.. it’s the finally 10 or 5 percent that separates the men from the boys.. Most of what makes a good record are the people making it, not the tools.. but tools are very important.. and if you don’t have the right tools.. you’re probably not going to get there.. 

All of this talk is somewhat abstract.. until you actually start listening to the gear… In the last few months I’ve been going through a few years of Sound on Sound magazine.. reading reviews, interviews, and whatever.. trying to get a better picture of what gear is out there.. production techniques.. and all sorts of related things.. as well as scouring the internet.. and listening to all kinds of samples of all sorts of tools.

Somewhere in this process I began to think “hmm, maybe my tools aren’t so great?” But then DP6’s new look and feel came to the rescue.. and I started to perceive differently.. and started to discover how amazing some of the tools I have really are.

So I mean it was a kind of subjective shift that brought a new perspective.

Where the Artist Plays

As I tried to get to before.. the most important thing is not your tools.. it’s you. And it’s not even really your skills so much as your spirit.. for it is, after all, the spirit who employs said skills.. and even said tools!

There is something to be said for habit.. I find myself approaching my music making in more or less the same way as I always have.. In the last 9 months or so.. I’ve gone on all manner of fun little experimental adventures.. exploration of process alternatives.. and what not… But even with all that.. as I approach the music making today.. I do so in the hum drum of habit.

Habit?

For many, habit is a state inside of which growth doesn’t really happen. However.. if there is sufficient anarchy in your habits.. that anarchy is always going to be putting you in varying positions which you will have to wrestle your way out of.. and that’s often where the interest in my work comes. Or that’s one way of putting it.

Still.. I’m not without desire to get out of my usual habits.. it’s just that.. such ambitions are not really the most important thing.. the most important thing is getting the damn ball rolling.. and if that means playing to your preexistent strengths, so bit it. 

Getting the ball rolling? 

Yeah.. getting the ball rolling is the most important thing. As we speak the ball is in motion.. Wether I’m working a way on music, screwing around with photography, working with video, computer graphics, web design, whatever.. at the very least.. each day.. I do something.

The end goal is to have as much of your energy as possible pouring into this work.  The more of you you can put into it.. the better the work will be… By which I don’t necessarily mean that you should “be in your work” but.. well thats complicated.

Next Day Sometime

My work is a strange beast!  In someways, going about what I’m going about.. I feel like I’m working on Indra’s Net version 2.. Indra’s Net was a project I worked on sometime in 2004… and at the time the laptop I was using.. well the screen was freaking small.. which effected things in a number of ways.. the processor, even for the time.. was very much on the budget side.. I never had enough RAM.. some of my software wouldn’t even run! And we didn’t even have enough hard disk room to save what we were doing in anything other then MP3 files!

Now of course.. we’re using 2 24″ HD displays.. We only have about 2GB of RAM but that hasn’t been a real issue in the music production department.. We have software that’s 2 generations beyond what I was using on Indra’s Net.. We have ridiculous amounts of processing power…  and we have more disk space then we’d ever use for music production. Finally, instead of Cubase we are now using Digital Performer.

Beyond all that we are 4 years in the future.. 4 Years more mature.. whatever I’ve learned about music production since then.. and 4 years evolution in my work. 

So.. The implications of all this.. are actually kind of big.

Implications on habit

I don’t think I spoke elegantly about this last night.. and now that I’m a little further along in my production.. new things are growing clear.

Habit, in a certain way.. is like a path you’re walking down.. habit being an act that keeps you on that path.. and so it is that we see our selves evolving further down a path.. There are certain things we add to our bag of tricks.. certain things that change things a little bit.. lets explore in the context of the current production.

New to the new studio.. is a lot of new Reverbs. Digital Performer gives us a convolution Reverb.. and Kore 2 gives us a whole number of other sorts of new reverbs.. besides new reverbs there is, for me.. new ways of thinking about how to use reverbs.. varying .. and how I might EQ them… all of which has to do with creating a sense of space inside of which our music is happening.

My music, of course, is about space.. moving through space.. more psychic space then real space.. and music production in general.. creating a sense of space is important..

project specifics 

I think of the music as something like a buddhist meditation.. it is something like thoughts flowing through consciousness.. consciousness is our stage.

The use of Reverb and delay, and how I’m mixing stuff.. can transform.. or contextualize something that would normally be thought of as aggressive or rocking.. into something more ambient.. something we don’t think of as aggressive or rocking.. and in a fluid sorta evolving mix.. with respect to our sense of space.. the context can give us different shades.. where the aggressive bits can be more like textures.. to being.. something to rock out to.

This production is very much like this.. about this..  We have this rather industrial type percussion.. which rises in intensity over several measures.. and also moves from very far away to closer.. It repeats.. with gaps between repeats.. and it isn’t until it’s second repeat that it ever gets close enough to us that we feel it as heavy in anyway.

The sound elements that start off far away, and move in closer to us.. are all simply repeating the same lines.. no variations at this point.. accept in how they play against the other repeating parts.. and with respect to there location in the mix.

Everything has this ambient like feeling to it.. Until part way through.. We have a rather lead synth sound.. it repeats twice.. but then.. when it might repeat.. in comes a church organ.. which though it does start of a little ways away from us.. it doesn’t start off in audible.. and it’s repetitions are variations.. and it becomes as if the repetitions of the different instruments are now kind of.. playing against each other in a new kind of way.

It’s during this stage of the music’s evolution that I’m now bringing in a string section. The string section will not be playing a repetitive part.. but will instead be playing in ways the plays off the harmonic ecology of the mix.. repetitions we do find in it.. will be to echo other instruments.. and to create a move clear coherence.. in the material.

For now the music is moving into a place where it could be quite a bit more aggressive.. to be heavy and rocking.. but where we are at now is still a bit of a dream. 

How this Compares to Indra’s Net 

What I failed to mention about the Indra’s Net Project was that.. I had just bought Komplete 2.. (5 is my current version).. and I was really just started to explore the tools.. and a new version of Cubase.. Now I actually know the tools..

What we are seeing now is subtleties.. between the new reverbs, the larger sound pallets… and the mix has a much greater kind of.. quality to it.

I seem to be inside of strange place where instead of actually producing music I’m… kinda like designing the building blocks of music production projects…. Or I’m programing synthesizers anyway.

I’m in Absynth 4.. Seems like the last time I sat around programing Absynth.. it must have been a couple versions back.. In any event, I find myself digging down deeper.

Because all my programing is now “Synthesizer X + Kore” there’s a kind of.. strangely different way of thinking about synthesizers. I’m a software synth guy, you must understand.. so I’m not used to having a lot of hardware controls via which I can get expressive with a synthesizer.. So I’ve never programmed a synth with the notion of “if you move these 8 knobs, and 8 buttons you’ll find this groovy expressive potential in this sound.”

Absynth.. Is interesting in that.. It’s one of the first synthesizers I ever kind of fell in love with programming. Absynth’s expressive potential for ambient music.. for evolving sound scapes.. is just awesome. And there’s something about programming it that gets my imagination going like no other..  It’s all a bit more like creating a sonic puppet then a conventional synth patch.. In the sense that you’re going in and finding different ways it could be expressive.. as a part of how you program it.

Latter that night

The patch I’m currently working on, as I write this post, is one that I’m not real sure if it’s usefulness as an instrument.. I mean I have no idea how it could fit into my work.. but I will say.. its fun as hell playing with… perhaps I can take a swing at trying to express what I mean by this….

Conventionally.. I don’t really use compressors or EQs.. or I didn’t until recently.. and I’m still at an early stage of learning how to integrate them into my work. Now conventionally EQs and Compressors are… well like the most important tools of mix engineers. EQs and compressors help you to shape various aspects of your mix.. But how I usually do it is.. in the choice of what instruments I use.. Another words.. how I shape the things EQ and Compressors shape.. I shape by things like what instruments I use.. which is.. in a lot of ways.. kinda better.   

A day or so latter:

You used to be able to just embed these.. but I can’t work out how to do that since they changed last.fm a little bit.. in any event.. here’s a direct link to a track called A Short Trip To Another Day. (clicking on it will open it in a new window.) The reason I link to this track is.. is it’s an example of something created based off.. well the same sorta spirit I’m working in now..  

I’m jumping around in this post a little.. so try and bare with me..

A Short Trip To Another Day was one of my first attempts at programming Absynth.. The program I created was.. one that I didn’t really know how I would be expressive with it.. or how it would work in my music.. So the process of creating A Short Trip to Another Day was one of exploring how it might fit into my work..

Working in this sorta way.. I think it pushes you in different directions then you might other wise work in.. which can result in more interesting work.. and I have to say that this might be one of my favorite tracks.. and so it illustrates what I’m talking about in this entry. 

Ok.. so…  

As I was saying before.. I never used to use EQs or Compressors in my productions.. and um.. EQs and Compressors are tools via which to craft a mix.. and they indeed are tools that I could use in order to exert some control over the sounds created by my synth programs..

So.. looking forward from where I’m at at this moment.. I see growth potential in my music, along a few different lines..  

1. There’s the process of learning to program various synthesizers and the power of custom sound libraries.. and all there implications… This isn’t a totally new concept.. but we are learning to program new synths / new versions of synths.. ad exploring new possibilities along these lines.
2. There is the issue of the hardware / software control.. thinking about sounds as puppets.. with various ways of getting expressive with our sounds.. that are much more complex in how they might be expressive.. then normally found in my work.
3. There is the subject of how to use EQs and Compressors in my work.. where they might make my work better, or perhaps make my work not soo much better.. but it is about the exploration of what there roll can be.. which is in large measure a more artistic thing then a conventional technical thing of.. the way things are conventionally done by people.
4. There is the possibility of using Kore 2 for “Super Instruments,” which is to say.. You create a patch.. that combines any number or synthesizers and effects into one giant “super instrument” and what that could bring to the table.

In talking about these possible directions..  for growth.. We are talking about how this work could become enriched. 

Latter that night, over tired (after a synth programing catastrophe)  

I started in on a new Absynth program today. What happened is.. I figured out how to have the.. well performance sliders, lets call them.. things I’d probably control via the Kore 2 controller.. modify envelopes. This would be a fairly simple thing.. but it’s enough to get me excited… With envelopes you can create rhythms… and you know.. these rhythms could evolve over time.. but also you could have different parts of your synth program playing different rhythms of different lengths.. that loop.. So its like.. well lets just say that’s pretty cool for the way I like to work..  (though I don’t normally use synth patches that include rhythms)… but the polymeric possibilities are very exciting to me..   

Anyway…..  So you can take one of these rhythms.. and you can make it so that one or another performance control alters the tempo of the rhythms… and in one patch.. you could have a lot of rhythms… So what I wanted to do is build in some way of controlling the relative amplitude of different rhythms, as well as there tempos… and also just kind of throw some fun stuff on the fire. Now.. .

Ok, groovy enough.. But allow me to attempt to explain what’s exciting to me about this..  out side of just the usual “and these are the reasons polymeric stuff is good for ambient music styles.” We’re actually not just talking poly-metric… where talking poly-tempi…  Another words.. we’re have multiple tempos going on inside of a single synth patch… I guess it’s like you have the main tempo.. that’s the tempo of the project  your working on.. and everything is synched to that tempo.. and you can shift that tempo around if you like.. but that’s like “the conductor tempo.” But.. you could have.. various instruments that… while being able to start out with an obvious relationship to that tempo.. can go off the rails in one way or another.

The difference between music and noise is probably your ability to recognize a pattern… And for patterns to be interesting.. they probably need to reach an optimal state between simple and complex, with respect to ones ability to recognize them… 

A few days latter 

Ok, I’m going to leave it off right here.. without finishing this, cause other wise it probably wont get posted.. but at least its an interesting look at what I’m up to. 

How do you do, my fair blog readers…  Matt’s feeling like referring to him self in the 3rd person.. .  one could almost use an editor’s note here? 

Yeah.. so..  I’m in this “I should post something” sorta mood..  how often do I speak of these moments? These are the moments when.. any old wind could hit your sails and take you just about anywhere.. which makes for an interesting thing.. but I don’t know that I have the energy to fully follow such thought tangents today..  I will.. however.. as a Poem of Mr. Sketch once said “give you the news from the front.”

The lyrical madness has made its way to the back burner..  or has it? Appearances can be misleading out here in the land of mystery management.. In any event.. the spirit moves me in the direction of……  well its trying to pull me in many directions at once, actually… and the directions I actually walk are a little different from spirit’s calling….  

Any who.. lets look at some of them spirit moves

• Electroacoustic music: Perhaps the best way of putting this is “hard core serious experimental electronic music.” This is being fueled by.. well I’m reading the Cambridge Electronic Music Companion.. or something like that.. It takes you deep into the history of the medium.. a large percentage of which I’m pretty familiar with.. In any event.. between that and listening to OHM.. there’s a drive in me to jump far out into the deep end of electronic madness…
• MTFS: Have your self a little Jam session.. in our case one that involves playing the guitar an bass.. and use the results as the basis of something. So far this has yielded results I’m happy with.. 
• “Song Writing,” we are talking about a more or less traditional song writing process.. which you then record and realize via the studio.
• The vocal madness adventures.. as described in recent entries.
• An exploration of my own consciousness: I’m feeling like..  well lets say “Matt has issues.” These amount to emotional things that seem to be seeking to block my progress..  exploring this stuff, in one way or another, seems like a good idea.

There’s much more one could say at this point..  about many other directions and thoughts and what nots.. I suppose all I can really say is I want to go deeper then I ever have before.. make a more profound kind of music.. I can see… somewhere off in the witches brew of a..  voodoo chili sorta thang.. possibilities that strike me as amazing..  some of these ideas have made it into blog entries.. I don’t know if you, my dear reader, find in them anything like I do.. or find anything in them to get excited about.. but it is what it is, I suppose.

A few seconds latter:

I just recently fired up Kore.. and pulled up Massive. Massive is a fairly new-ish synthesizer from Native Instruments..  I bought the Komplete upgrade this past winter…  and still haven’t really used it all that much.. haven’t gotten to the point of setting about trying to create my own patches..

Patches, if you don’t know..  when you program a synthesizer.. the result is referred to as a patch. My desire to travel more deeply into electronic music…  well, you gotta get serious about synthesizer programming, right? There are ways in which early electronic music is expressive.. that I don’t really feel like modern electronic music really is.. and certainly my music isn’t.. . My music is, I would say with some arrogance.. more interesting then much that is out there..  for “the taste police” haven’t really effected my journey too much.. so I have a voice that is powerful in its originality.. So I suppose this adventure is one of extending the uniqueness of my sonic vision.. 

So the question is can I create patches that would allow me to be expressive in these ways I think it might be important to be expressive? Some of this is as simple as changing my attitude towards what I’m doing..   

Early the next morning, still not awake:

I think its good to try and run in a lot of directions at once.. I feel as through there’s a massive number of ways I need to develop going forward.. In part because.. it seems like I’m making a bigger commitment to music making then I ever have before.. and doing so really asks of me that I rase the bar a whole hell of a lot, in a whole number of areas.  I suppose its the bar raising that the central core to what’s pushing me forward… or the feeling of needing to.

Well I thought I’d share the lyrics to the song / music I’m working on.. blogged about in this post, among others. But it should add something to our understanding of like.. the thematic whatevers of it.

I don’t know, what the future holds. All I know, is the unknowns know it all. They are the contexts, that breeth the meaning into it all. How do you live, in relationship to this truth? I could tell you.. but then I’d have to kill you.

Would you like to die? Oh would you like to die? Only by dying, can you glimps what I’m meaning. Would you like to know? Oh wouldn’t you like to know what I’m meaning!

All life is suffering,

All life is suffering!

Would you like me to save you?

From all you’re suffering?

I would like to help you.

I would like to help you!

I would love to help you, cause that’s just the kind of guy I am.

I’m a loving compassionate soul, don’t cha know?

A loving compassionate soul, that’s right!

So why don’t you let me love you,

why don’t you let me love you?

Don’t cha know we all need love!

So baby, why don’t cha let me put my love into you!

I don’t know, what the future holds. All I know, is the unknowns know it all. They are the contexts, that breeth the meaning into it all. How do you live, in relationship to this truth? I could tell you.. but then I’d have to kill you.

Only by dying, can you glimps what I’m meaning. Would you like to know? Oh wouldn’t you like to know what I’m meaning!

All life is suffering!

Would you like me to save you?

From all you’re suffering?

I would love to help you

 

So why don’t you let me love you,

why don’t you let me love you?

Don’t cha know we all need love!

So baby, why don’t cha let me put my love into you!

 

OH YEAH! OH YEAH BABBY! I KNOW YOU LIKE IT WHEN I DO IT LIKE THAT.

OH YEAH! OH YEAH!

Mmm YEAH Mmm YEAH!

MMM MMM MMM YEA

I don’t know, what the future holds. All I know, is the unknowns know it all. They are the contexts, that breeth the meaning into it all. How do you live, in relationship to this truth? I could tell you..

The formating is a little messed up but.. other then that

[editors notes: this was written a few days back, at an earlier stage in the production.. since then things have changed pretty dramatically.. but the ideas contained here are still front and center.. as far as the music production / musical composition’s core organizational principles are concerned… The other note to note.. is this is but part 1..  stay tuned for the second half] 

Ok.. the last post I actually posted was what we call in the social media biz “supper duper” long… which is strategically a no-no.. but I felt that I needed it for a kind of aesthetic / philosophical / theoretical back drop for todays post.. which…. though I didn’t get around to saying all I’d have liked to in said post.. we are going to try and move our focus onto the actual work before me.. and the processes involved.

As I started to say in the last post.. I started off with a voice synthesizer.. a free one.. plugged lyrics into that.. it renders out to an MP3 (not totally ideal), from there I take the MP3 into Ableton Live and start running it through all manner of effects.. I do this individual for each line of lyrics.. rendering out a few variations for each line..

It’s at this point where the project goes on the back burner.. my attention devoted to other matters.. until I go out and buy ReCycle.. where I cut up the processed audio files into REX2 loops for use in Reason… which brings us to where I am today.

You can sequence a REX2 file… play any of the slices in the loop, at any time, in whatever order.. also the REX player in Reason, known as Dr:rex, is a bit of an instrument.. it has pitch bend, a modulation wheel.. you can automate any of its controls.. we have filters, oscillators, and modulators.

For this project, which is my first project along these lines.. I start off fairly simple.. I sit in the sequencer, sequencing the loop slices…

REX sequencing

Imagine.. if you will.. we have an audio file with various slices. In our sequencer we say what slice to play, and how loud to play that slice.. as well as when to play that slice. The slices.. if played in order.. for the right lengths.. would play the original audio file as it was.. assuming your project is set to the same tempo.. But in programming a sequence, we don’t actually have to play the slices in order or anything.

The effect is to “cut up” the audio file.. which.. in practice.. creates some pretty strange glitch-e kinda of effects.. sounds like digital equipment going nuts… sometimes you’re sure there’s something wrong with it, and you want to smack the computer.

This cut up / glitch-ification of the audio introduces a range of ambiguity.. we are abstracting from a source.. this having to with the meta cognitive experience of experience I talked about in that recent post.. Mind you our starting point is a voice synthesizer which sounds a bit like a speak and spell.. or I should say it has all the rich expressiveness of a speak and spell.. which is to say its not expressive at all.. it is digitized.. so.. whatever the lyrics are.. they are now abstracted into this digitized place.

Thematic Material

There is, of course, a link between the digital / mechanical and the pathological.. what’s the relationship of the machine to the humanity? What is the symbolic meaning of Darth Vader being more machine then human? Hitler… he would have told you that “he was the state,” the state of course is the machine.. such is the symbolism we are playing with.

The lyrics have to do with the transcendent.. and the limits of our concepts of reality.. through which we interact with reality.. and the implications of this.. God.. if you look at how he behaved relative to Job, or for that matter in the old testament more generally.. would seem to be “a bit of a monster” or.. to put it another way.. human morality and God’s morality are not quite the same thing.. we could talk about awe in relationship to God in this sense.. and the relationship between man and machine.. perhaps the pathological with the.. kind of conventional human morality.. has certain parallels.. which has some implication on how we might relate to the lyrics.

All of this has to do with with the mind bending aspect of the lyrics.. has to do with.. “the dark side of the transcendent,” to put it a certain way.. but also we are dealing with the old “through death comes life” shtick.

Ambiguity and the Cognitive

In the blog entry to which this is a kind of sequel.. I shared a cut up film written by William Burroughs.. We are of course entering into the world of cut ups.. and we are talking about mysticism’s relationship to challenges in cognitive processes.. or I talked a bit about this in said post… So lets talk about this a little.

We have the range of the easy to understand to the.. incomprehensible.. the overly easy is boring.. the overly hard to understand is frustrating.. and so it is that we dance between the extremes..

So.. how do we do this? For starters.. if I were to speak to you a sentence.. but allowed 5 minutes to pass between each word.. would you, at the end of it, know what the hell I was saying? Probably not.. particularly if there was music all around, drawing our attention this way and that.

This idea.. and I don’t even know if it is still up at this point.. is a driving idea of the lyrics in the music linked to from this post. It’ll be up in a podcast soon enough.. In any event.. lets talk about the lyrics in this “MTFS revisited” track.

We are taking one line from the lyrics to the song I’m currently working on… and that was the basis for the lyrics in the MTFS revisited track. Your ability to recognize what is being said in the lyrics is played with in a number of ways.

Firstly.. we hear the lyrics more or less straight.. slightly manipulated, close to the start of the track.. there’s only one problem.. there’s a lot of frequency masking going on.. so the lyrics are not easily recognized at this point.. we most likely only recognize fragments of the lyrics.. if that.. if we even recognize the lyrics at all. (There was one person who commented that she didn’t even notice the singing till she had heard the track a few times!)

The whole way through the track.. it is never made clear what the lyrics are saying.. its always obscured.. or we are always only getting fragments.. until the very end.. when the lyrics show up like a period.

Now.. if you know the lyrics, and you listen, you know what is being said even when the lyrics are being obscured in one way or another.. and at this point the lyrics provide a kind of subtext / meaning to the music.

Ok.. so back to the current project

There is this idea that.. well what would happen to the MTFS Revisited.. if you heard the project I’m working on now? Another words.. if you got the rest of the song of which that is a line from? How would it change the meaning of that track.. and for that matter, how might that track change the meaning of this track?

As I play around with this question.. I think “hmm, perhaps I should make a whole album based of this idea.” Which leads us into the question of lyrics in a slightly different way.

The Issue of the Vocal / Lyric Performance Spectrum

A little earlier I spoke about what it means to have lyrics realized by a software synthesizer with all the expressive powers of a speak and spell.. Those limitations have some implications on the meaning.. and my cut up project with it, along with all the processing.. is at least in part a compensation for those limitations..

Well.. there are other options that I.. alluded to in the recent post.. about how it would cost me a few grand to get the tools necessary to fully explore this spectrum.. which is why the full project may spend some time on the back burner.. but lets explore the tools anyway:

Tools

• Cantor: This is a real, full fledged “vocal synthesizer” which is to say its made to allow you to produce vocals via a synthesizer.. It’s even capable of going so far as to “sound realistic.” Imagine that….. Its selling for around $300 these days.. less for an older version.
• Antares AVOX: This is your basic “vocal tool box;” a set of tools made expressly for processing vocals.. you can do your gender bending.. you can change.. basically… well.. make it sound as if it were someone else singing.. Its some very cool and very powerful tools.. we’re talking $500.
• Audio Ease All In One Bundle: For our purposes we are talking about SpeakerPhone.. SpeakerPhone is a kind of.. lets call it a sound design tool.. which is primarily focused on emulating different types of speakers.. everything from telephones to.. well speak and spell esk devices.. to guitar cabinets.. and onward.. via the magic that is dynamic convolution technology… the full bundle, of which SpeakerPhone is a part.. runs in at a cool $1200.

Out side of the above mentioned gear… there’s things like “good quality microphones” and what not. I’m thinking both studio microphones and field microphones..

And um, what Exactly is all this about?

Strangely.. the way my current process is working.. the lyrics are rendered in a rather ambient form.. They are a strange element of an electronic sound art thing.. It’s hard to really explain this without hearing it.. The way the voice synth’s lines are both processed and then chopped up.. and sequenced.. make it so that the very act of.. “it” trying to speak a line.. is sorta fascinating to listen to.. To the point that.. we loose track of what’s actually being said.. It’s as if the vocals where some kind of “sound effect” or special thing sorta put there..

So.. this is an effect of how I’ve explored this crazy cut up ish process at this point.. the point is that.. you could very easily have “real singing” going on.. at the same time in a track.. without the two elements interfering with one another. I suppose to fully explain this we need to jump back to…

Ambiguity and the Cognative

In cutting stuff up.. one of the things I’m playing with is.. how do we process the words? We process the words differently then how we process pure sound.. how can cutting things up be expressive? What are the possibilities of working with lyrics in this way?

Methods of am-big-u-fying.

• Temporal orientation.. particularly spacing.. if we are speaking linearly. How long are the gaps between stuff?
• Temporal orientation.. order / sequencing: How things are placed in time relative to one another.. who we move through the slices..
• “The Mix:” In our virtual mix.. how front and center is an element.. how far away is it?

Latter: (lets get back to basic process already)

Performances, programing, and arranging

So far the process has a couple of steps.. Once you’ve loaded your REX file into Dr:REX.. you’re going to create little sequences out of it. This is your chance to “sculpt a vocal performance” in a rather glitch-ified way. The other sorta sequence I’ll make is a kind of rhythmic textural arrangement of the slices. I may, in the process, make variations of these….. I then arrange the sequences in relationship to one another on the time line…

So far, this is all I do.. I mean I do this for each clip.. till I get through all the clips.. I don’t even bother automating pitch bends, modulations, tuning, or whatever.. I do, however, listen to the stuff and think about what I might do in the next stage of things..

Next Steps

The next step is still something of an unknown to me… This is an exploratory adventure, and what I plan to do next is nothing more then ideas / presumptions.. Once we actually dig into it.. then we’ll really know.

The considerations

One of the problems I have is that the vocals happen inside a very limited frequency range.. and we really want to be careful about how other instrumentation will impact your ability to hear what’s being said. This kind of a thing is also an issue relative to the interest in the rhythmic textural arrangements.

The actual lyrics, and there meaning, is.. well its very deep.. and how the lyrics can presented / performed / arranged or executed, is going to effect how you take them in. Currently.. the way stuff is arranged is very much on the… well it makes it so we sorta experience one line at a time and loose the continuity of between the lines. So one assumes that we need variations in the performance and arrangement.. so that this way of making things more ambiguous will.. at some point in the production.. come into focus… so that the meanings of the lyrics have there proper impact.

To these ends.. I have a number of thoughts and ideas.. which is part of what makes it interesting to me. If, as I’ve suggested before.. the notion is to make a whole album out of these lyrics.. or that these lyrics would become the core of the album.. if we think of the album as one giant composition.. then it could be that we have different variations at different times over the course of the album.

This idea then.. could mean that the album is essentially a kind of instrumental album.. with ambient vocal textures.. to put it a certain way. This, as an idea, seems very interesting to me.. and makes sense, I think, as a possible first step in bringing lyrics to my music.

If you relate the idea of this.. to what I was getting to before.. about a “Vocal Lyric Spectrum,” its possible that you could have other elements that could provide “alternative organizing principles” for the album.. or that you could hear the album in different ways.. or from different perspectives. Not having all the tools I’d like.. a certain amount of this larger project is forced to be on the back burner.. at least for now..

so, back to the next steps

One of the interesting compositional challenges is the cut up issue of how we read the lyrics, so to speak.. I assume that one of the next steps is to start actually mixing the vocal performance. This will amount to putting effects on them.. and automating there arrangement in space.. It also might be altering parts pitches so that they work inside of an over all composition..

If you haven’t seen these videos, or heard about them, perhaps its time you have? The iPhone is turning into a pretty interesting little music making platform.. today we highlight to programs.

Beat Maker 

Ok, tell me this isn’t uber cool!? 

Did I mention it was only 20 bucks? 

iDrum

Guess how much this one will set you back? Try like $5. 

I thought the following was just fun.. an example of someone doing something with iDrum: 

lol, guess that’s what happens when you bring music making technology to the unwashed masses! 

Well I personally haven’t gotten a chance to check these out yet but.. you can expect a full report in the not to distant future, I’m guessing. And so thus end todays journey into music production on your iPhone.. dig it!